


Company

by FrameofMind



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 15:42:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2586923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrameofMind/pseuds/FrameofMind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jin has always been unpredictable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Company

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Company  
> Author: FrameofMind  
> Pairing: Akame  
> Rating: R  
> Word Count: ~15,700  
> Genre: Romance/Humor/General  
> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction.  
> Summary: Jin has always been unpredictable.  
> Author’s Note: This was one of those ideas that started with one thing, then sort of decided to go its own way, and eventually ended up not even involving the one thing it had started with. Guess I’ll just have to use it somewhere else, ne…?
> 
> (Happy Nov. 8th, everybody. ;)

Jin has always been unpredictable. Like a Pachinko machine, or a handful of dice, or a tornado. This was one of the things Kame loved about him when they were kids. It was one of the things Kame hated about him once they were adults. And it’s one of the things Kame no longer has to feel any way at all about now that they’re strangers.  
  
Or so he thought.  
  
“Akanishi?”  
  
Kame stares at the hooded figure taking up most of his doorway. His grey sweatshirt is a little bit damp at the shoulders, but nothing tames the few flyaway wisps that peak out around his face, so he can’t have been wandering in the rain for all that long. He seems a bit out of breath, but maybe that’s just from the dash from the cab to the building—or maybe it’s from the giant lumpy duffel bag he’s got slung over his shoulder. Looks like a baby elephant wrapped in canvas.  
  
“Hey, Kame,” Jin says, pushing his way through into the genkan and toeing off his bright orange sneakers. “Mind if I crash on your couch for a few days?” The duffel bag hits Kame in the shoulder as Jin steps up into the living room, and Kame stumbles against the door to keep from losing his balance.  
  
His eyes follow Jin’s progress as he closes the door again, because even though he hasn’t the foggiest idea what is going on here, he’s pretty sure it will be better if the neighbors don’t find out. Jin has already dumped his bag on one end of the couch and unzipped it, and now he’s rooting around for something inside.  
  
“Have you been drinking?”  
  
“No,” Jin says, like a shrug—and he doesn’t sound like he has, except for…everything he’s saying and doing. “But I brought beers. You want one?”  
  
Kame watches a small clump of t-shirts fall out over the lip of the bag and onto the arm of his couch.  
  
“Are you okay? Have you been in an accident? Do you have a head injury?”  
  
Jin chuckles. “No. Why?”  
  
“Akanishi,” Kame says, just the slightest bit pointedly, and for a moment he thinks he sees Jin falter. “You haven’t spoken to me in five years.”  
  
Jin’s mouth draws in tight and he bends a little lower over the bag, like he’s sort of trying to hide in it. So…not completely demented then. Just ballsy.  
  
“I have,” he says, with an awkward attempt at lightness. “I saw you a while ago. At that thing…”  
  
Kame doesn’t say anything. That is not what he means, and Jin knows it.  
  
“Anyway, you changed your number,” Jin mumbles.  
  
“I didn’t—you did.”  
  
Jin’s hands stop moving, and his eyes flicker back and forth once.  
  
“Oh, yeah.”  
  
Then his face lights up again and he reaches deep into a corner, pulling out two cans of Asahi Super Dry. “A-ha! Found them. Here.” He holds one out to Kame with a smile that’s slightly creepy in its obliviousness. It’s the eyes that give him away, twitchy and timid, with a little bit of a blink. He’s obviously hiding something.  
  
Well, he’d have to be, wouldn’t he. Because otherwise he’s definitely gone insane.  
  
Kame takes the beer from him slowly, just so he’ll stop standing there like that, but he doesn’t open it—just holds it between his hands in front of him. Jin drops onto the couch next to his duffel and pops the top of the second beer, like he was here only yesterday helping to rearrange Kame’s furniture and poking fun at his knickknacks. The knickknacks are different since then, but the couch is the same.  
  
This is really weird.  
  
“What are you doing here?”  
  
Jin swallows a mouthful of beer and rests his elbow on top of his duffel, scratching at his messy hood-hair and glancing around the apartment like he’s taking stock of the changes. “Our place is being fumigated,” he says. “Meisa and Theia are in Okinawa, but I have work stuff, so I have to stay in town. I can’t stay at the apartment while they’re doing stuff to it, and Pi has his girlfriend moving in this week, and Ryo’s got landlord issues, and Josh—”  
  
“I get the picture,” Kame interrupts, because if Jin plans to run through the entire list of people he would turn to before Kame they’re going to be here for quite some time. “Why don’t you go to a hotel?”  
  
There’s that little purse of lips again as he peers down into his beer can, and Kame can’t tell whether it’s lying or just embarrassed. It would help if his Jinese weren’t so rusty. He never really thought he’d need it again.  
  
“Money is kind of tight at the moment,” Jin mutters, closing one eye and tilting the beer can slightly towards the other. “Kids are expensive, turns out.”  
  
Yeah. Especially when you get your career suspended right before you have one. And dump your agency contract right after.  
  
Kame doesn’t say that.  
  
“So are exterminators.”  
  
“I see,” Kame says, dropping his arms to his sides and tapping his still-unopened beer can against his thigh. “Well. I’m sorry, but you can’t stay here.”  
  
Jin looks up with slightly wide eyes, and damn if he can’t make Kame feel like a jerk (when he’s done  _absolutely nothing wrong_ ) faster than anyone. Still.  
  
But seriously. Kame is  _not_  the one who’s crazy here. This is not how this works. Jin doesn’t get to waltz in here after five years of no communication whatsoever and demand favors like it’s only been a day. It’s just…not how it works.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Kame says again—and he really hates that he’s even apologizing, because it’s not like Jin has even said please. “It’s just—I have kind of a full schedule right now, and I like my space.” He gestures vaguely at the room, which…does seem rather conspicuously spacious, now that he looks at it. And Jin’s not even taking up half the couch right now, even with his duffel sitting beside him.  
  
But— _no_. Just…no.  
  
Jin chews on his lower lip as he fiddles with the aluminum tab on the top of his beer can.  
  
“Please, Kame?” he says, so quietly Kame almost misses it. When he looks up again, his eyes are serious and imploring too, and that’s just not fair. “Just for a little while. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.” And he’s not looking away this time. His beer can is tilting a little bit between fidgety fingers in his lap, but at least this time Kame doesn’t think it’s a lie.  
  
And then Jin looks down again towards his feet, and Kame can’t help shifting his weight awkwardly from one side to the other. And it irritates him that he’s even thinking about saying yes, because they don’t know each other anymore, and the fact that Jin would even show up here unannounced is just…strange and uncomfortable, and it’s not likely to get easier, and Kame really  _does_  like his space at home, especially when he’s filming all day. But…hell. He’s always had trouble saying no to Jin. Especially when he’s sitting there with his shoulders all hunched and his sad little duffel bag looking like the last puppy left at the pound.  
  
Anyway, it is kind of late, and it’s a Saturday. Even if Kame gives him money for a hotel, he’ll probably have to wander around in the rain for a couple hours to find one nearby with a vacancy. And a still-open reception desk.  
  
Oh, for fuck’s sake.  
  
“One night,” he says, firmly, and Jin looks up all hopeful and grateful, and that’s slightly irritating too. But mostly it’s just better than Jin looking abandoned. “One night, okay? That’s it. Tomorrow, you find somewhere else to stay. Help Yamapi carry his girlfriend’s furniture or whatever, I don’t care, just—you can’t stay here. Got it?”  
  
“Got it,” Jin says with a nod and a broad smile, and now he’s sipping happily at his beer again. “I’ll be gone tomorrow, I promise. Thank you, Kame. I really appreciate it.” And then he’s setting his beer on the coffee table and hunting around for the remote control, because it’s not sitting in the caddy where it usually is. And Kame gives another little sigh as he finally drops down into the armchair beside the couch and pulls his feet up after him, resting his beer on his ankles.  
  
It is weird, he thinks again as he watches Jin shuffling through the stacks of magazines and half-read scripts on the table in front of them. Sort of like being visited by a time-traveler. Or a ghost.  
  
And somehow he has a nagging feeling that Jin hasn’t really answered any of his questions. Not a single one.  
  
*      *      *  
  
Filming on Sunday is wet and very, very early.  
  
Well, not as early as some. But early given the fact that he was up until 1 a.m. to finish learning his lines after he’d found a pillow and blankets for Jin for the couch, and then changed his mind when he saw the way Jin’s feet stuck off the end and rolled out a futon for him on the living room floor. Which necessitated moving the coffee table, and also the small bookshelf by the balcony door so that there would still be a clear path to reach it in case Jin needed a cigarette during the night, because Kame definitely wasn’t letting him smoke in the house, and Jin better fucking well know better than that.  
  
It didn’t occur to him until he was changed and washed and curled up in his own bed, squirming a bit to get comfortable wearing boxers to sleep, that he doesn’t even know if Jin still smokes.  
  
Probably. The man was a chimney for more than a decade. Even Kame feels the pull sometimes in rehearsals, and he’s never smoked half as much as Jin does. Did. But…Jin has a kid now, so…hey, anything’s possible. You give up a lot of stuff when you have kids.  
  
Or so Kame hears.  
  
The sky is actually sunny and clear, and it’s even a bit warm for March, but Kame spends the morning shivering under manufactured rain, fighting through the chill to say his lines without letting his teeth chatter over them. It’s actually sort of helpful. Very method. Gives him something to act against. And he doesn’t even have to fake the desperation to get the words out and make himself understood. The sooner he manages to convince the girl that he’s madly in love with her and she shouldn’t fly off to Australia to become a camel wrangler with the slightly taller, slightly handsomer, slightly more boring (if you can apply the word “boring” to someone who makes a living as a camel wrangler) other guy, the sooner he can get out of the fake rain and into some warm clothes.  
  
The take finally ends, and the rain is switched off, and assistants rush the two of them with loads of fluffy white towels. Kame pulls one tightly around his shoulders, shivering a little as the folds of wet shirt are pressed into his skin, and accepts another to dry off his hair. The peachy-orange pancake smudges the white as he scrubs at his face as well, but that doesn’t matter. His costar has a bangumi to record later this afternoon, so Kame is done for the day.  
  
He makes the usual farewells to Inoue-san and the crew as he heads back to the makeshift dressing room to change out of his wet clothes and back into something dry. He’s exhausted. The lack of sleep is catching up with him, and lack of breakfast is catching up with him even more. He has the rest of the afternoon off for a change, and he’s looking forward to going back to his empty apartment and ordering takeout so he can veg out for a while. Maybe even take a nap in his massage chair.  
  
As soon as he walks in the door, it becomes clear to him that his apartment is not quite as empty as he’d hoped.  
  
The furniture is all back where it belongs, at least, Kame notices as he drops his keys on the table by the door and lowers his bag down beside it. Even the bookshelf, which took the two of them to move last night. He wanders over to it and peers down at the floor, running his toe over it in search of any dents or scrapes in the hardwood. It seems alright. The futon is stacked neatly in the opposite corner, all the bedding piled on top. But Jin’s duffel bag is still sitting beside it, and Jin’s orange shoes are still in the genkan, and Jin’s voice is still coming from the kitchen, singing one of his own songs just slightly off key and inserting mimicked electronic sound effects as needed.  
  
He’s been cleaning too, Kame realizes. All the knickknacks on the breakfront have been dusted, and the books and magazines on the coffee table have been organized by size and type and put into neat little stacks. The remote is back in the caddy.  
  
Wait, the kitchen?  
  
He crosses the room quickly, stopping short in the doorway and staring. Jin is wearing one of Kame’s aprons, his dark hair pulled up into a curly little half-ponytail to keep it out of his face, and he’s currently hovering over not one but  _two_  skillets and a pot, dancing slightly to his own mumbled tune as he sprinkles some kind of seasoning over the pot. The kitchen table is covered with half-chopped vegetables and open jars and spices, most of which didn’t come from anywhere in Kame’s pantry. Apparently Jin has been shopping.  
  
Kame has no idea what he’s making. But it doesn’t smell poisonous yet, so it’s already an improvement on the three or four other times he’s seen Jin try to cook something unsupervised.  
  
Jin picks up a wooden spoon from the spoon rest and swirls it around in his concoction a couple of times. On the way out, he holds it up to his mouth like a microphone, closing his eyes and opening up for the chorus.  
  
 _“He-ey, what’s up…?”_  
  
Kame just stands there watching him. He remembers hearing this song on the radio a lot around the time it first came out, all synthed up and summery, meant to be sung in a club to a crowd of young hot somebodies, not in an empty kitchen to a wooden spoon. He didn’t like it much before—but he kind of likes this version.  
  
This is weird. Jin is being weird.  
  
Jin turns around to reach for the bottle of cooking wine on the table and jumps so hard he just about drops both it and the spoon when he notices Kame there in the doorway.  
  
“Oh. Uh. Shit—sorry, I didn’t know you were home. I meant to have the—I mean, it’s fine, it’s your house, just that I wanted to…”  
  
 _What are you_ doing _here?_  
  
“You hungry?” Jin asks. He’s holding up a plate of squid from the counter. It’s rather sloppily cut and arranged, and it’s covered in some unidentifiable sauce, but…it actually does smell kind of good. And it’s ready, and it’s here, and Kame doesn’t have to cook it or order it himself. And he is, frankly, starving.  
  
“Sure,” he says, peering curiously at the way Jin’s smile broadens when he agrees. “Thanks. Let me just go change.”  
  
By the time he gets out of his work clothes, Jin has everything spread out on the table with places set for both of them. It’s really a pretty impressive meal for one morning’s work, given that Jin also apparently cleaned the living room and went to the market. It’s a bit eclectic, consisting of not only the squid, but some kind of meat stew, a mess of stir-fried vegetables, and various odds and ends that Jin probably picked out impulsively as he was wandering through the foreign foods section at the market. There are some odd combinations, but pretty much everything tastes good—except the pickles in chili oil, which Kame leaves to Jin.  
  
Jin talks a lot too. Like, a lot. Kame hasn’t heard him speak this much at once since he was sixteen and didn’t care what came out of his mouth, or who within earshot might be likely to slap him for it. He doesn’t actually say all that much, but he tells Kame about the shopping and how he couldn’t find the kind of something-Kame-can’t-pronounce sauce he was looking for, and how a little old lady helped him find the paprika and called him a nice young woman. (He forgave her—she seemed pretty spacy.)  
  
Kame listens mostly. Laughs sometimes. Eats a lot. (He’s half tempted to ask Jin what’s in the squid sauce, because it’s kind of amazing.) Whenever there’s a lull where he thinks he can slip in a relevant question or two, Jin remembers some weird thing he saw in one of the magazines on the coffee table or pushes another dish of something yummy and strange under Kame’s nose.  
  
Kame is still nibbling a little when Jin starts cleaning up. (Jin is  _cleaning up_. It wasn’t even Kame’s idea, Jin just hopped up and did it.) He watches him disappear into the kitchen again and again, sometimes humming to himself as he puts away the leftovers. Eventually returning to pick up more of the empty dishes.  
  
Kame finishes the last of the stir-fry and pushes his plate away. He slumps back in his chair and closes his eyes. Scrubs at his face a little, then rolls his head to the side to try to work out the persistent crick in his neck. He should really make an appointment for a massage, but he never thinks of it until it’s too late to get an appointment at the place he usually goes to. And trying a new place can get awkward—you never know how anybody is going to react. Getting recognized by people on his off hours is weird enough when it’s only at the grocery store with his pants on.  
  
A pair of hands wraps around his neck, and he jolts and opens his eyes—until he realizes it’s just Jin. Not strangling him, in fact—just gently rubbing. His long fingers have started poking at the muscles over Kame’s shoulders, and it’s a little clumsy and not exactly like he knows what he’s doing, but all the same it feels really…nice.  
  
Weird. Really, really weird.  
  
But nice.  
  
Oh, fuck it.  
  
Kame sighs and slumps forward to rest his head on the table, relaxing his shoulders properly and letting Jin work out at least a little bit of the tension for him.  
  
“They made us stand out in the rain for like three hours,” Kame mumbles into his forearm.  
  
Jin breathes a little laugh, tugging at his elbow to get him to straighten one arm out so he can work his way down it a little. “I don’t know where you were, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky all day.”  
  
“It was fake rain,” Kame says, stretching and shifting under the pressure of Jin’s nimble fingers. Twisting into it a bit when he finds a really tight spot and just stays there for a while.  
  
Feels really good.  
  
“Still cold though.”  
  
“You should make them warm it up for you.”  
  
Kame huffs a breath. “I’ll put a rider in my contract next time.”  
  
Jin is quiet then for a long while. He just listens while Kame complains—about the cold, about the delay when the camera quit on them and needed to be replaced by the backup, about the too-short sleep. About the rehearsal last week where Taguchi and Ueda showed up at the wrong place and they had to scramble to get everybody together, and they didn’t manage to finish before Kame had to leave for a night shoot. About how it’s been three weeks at least since he’s been able to sleep eight hours straight at a regular time. It’s nothing he hasn’t said before, and it’s not really anything out of the ordinary for him to begin with, but it feels good to get it off his chest anyway. It feels good to whine and be useless, not have to put on a smile or make everything into a clever anecdote. It feels good to have someone listening. The massage isn’t half bad either.  
  
They move over to the couch so that Jin can work the knots out of Kame’s lower back. Kame flips on the TV and leaves it on a rerun of some jidaigeki from a few years ago, closing his eyes and only half-listening. Jin is pushing on his tailbone with the heels of his hands, walking them slowly up and down his spine, and he can feel his back cracking, his muscles gradually turning all warm and liquid. This couch is more comfortable than he remembers.  
  
He must have drifted off at some point. When he opens his eyes again, the TV has changed to some kind of variety program, and his face is slightly stuck to the cushion with a little bit of drool. Jin isn’t anywhere around anymore, and the living room is significantly darker than before, only a little bit of ambient light slipping in through curtains by the balcony doors.  
  
Kame pushes himself up and wipes the drool from his face with the back of his wrist. He has that slightly drunk feeling that tends to come with an accidental nap, but underneath it all he feels a little less exhausted than before. And his back feels much better, if maybe a tiny bit bruised from all the inexpert poking around. Still more effective than the massage chair though.  
  
It’s gotten chillier without the sun coming in through the windows, and Kame feels the draft now that he’s up off the couch. There’s a blanket tangled around his waist, and he’s pretty sure that wasn’t there when he fell asleep. A glance at the stack of bedding in the corner tells him where it came from.  
  
He pulls it up over his shoulders, tucking it around himself as he gets to his feet. He flips off the television, and in the silence he can hear quiet noises coming from the kitchen, where the light is still on. Wandering over, he once again pauses in the doorway, resting his head against the frame. Jin is there.  
  
Cleaning the oven.  
  
He gives a little bemused laugh at the sight. He’s not sure he’s ever seen Jin actually use an oven, much less clean one.  
  
The clock on the microwave tells him it’s after 9 p.m., and Jin is still here. It’s starting to look as if he really has no intention of leaving today at all—which was not the deal, and they both know it. But then again, he spent the whole day cooking and cleaning Kame’s apartment—his oven, even, which he didn’t even use, unless there’s something Kame doesn’t know about Jin’s pickle recipe—and Kame got his nap and his massage, and he’s all warm and relaxed and wrapped up in the blanket Jin slept with last night. And he’s here already, so maybe it’s not such a big deal if he just stays. Just one more night. Kicking him out sounds like work, and Kame doesn’t feel like working right now.  
  
“Why are you here?” he murmurs, only half to himself.  
  
Jin pauses for a moment, though he doesn’t turn around. Then he just keeps scrubbing at a stubborn stain on the inside of the oven door with tiny, even strokes. “I told you,” he says, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “Exterminators.”  
  
Kame gives a slow blink, still staring at the back of Jin’s head. He still has his hair in that little curly ponytail, sticking up a bit at the back. It’s sort of cute.  
  
“How long is it supposed to take?”  
  
Jin shrugs again, leaning over a bit further to get at the edge near the door hinges. “A few days. Maybe a week or so. They said they’d call me when they’re done.”  
  
Kame nods vaguely, even though Jin can’t see him.  
  
“Do you want something more to eat?” Jin asks, glancing back over his shoulder at Kame. “It’s pretty late—you slept for a while. I can order a pizza.”  
  
A smile tugs at Kame’s lips before he can stop it, and he glances down at the floor near his feet. Jin and pizza. Now that sounds familiar.  
  
“Yeah, sure,” he says, scratching at his ankle with a socked toe. “Why not.”  
  
“You still like seafood, right? With white sauce, no tomatoes.”  
  
Kame just watches him working, frowning at the strange mixture of weird and  _so, so familiar_.  
  
“Kame?” Jin says when he doesn’t answer. “We can get something else if you want. I just thought—”  
  
“Seafood is good,” Kame says quickly, with a little shake of his head. “Sorry. Yeah, seafood is fine. Thanks.”  
  
Jin smiles. “No problem.”  
  
*      *      *  
  
They put on a movie over pizza and beers. Kame wanted a romantic comedy, but Jin voted for an action movie, so they end up watching  _Galaxy Quest_. Jin starts critiquing the translations in the subtitles and complains that they’re butchering all the jokes, and Kame throws a pizza crust at him because he can’t even read the butchered jokes over Jin’s talking. Jin tries to force-feed him a slice from his Italian trio with Roma tomatoes. Kame falls off the couch in his effort to get away, and narrowly avoids kicking him in the balls on the way down.  
  
It’s weird how much easier it is to ignore the weirdness after a while. Once Kame decides to forget about the fact that it’s now and not then, and this doesn’t make sense anymore like it used to. Back when everything was easy and nothing was complicated. Back when they both wanted the same things, and couldn’t really imagine a time when they wouldn’t.  
  
Jin cleans up again afterwards, putting away the leftover pizza while Kame flips over to the late-night news. While Jin is in the kitchen, Kame gets up and starts pushing the furniture around again, making space for Jin’s futon.  
  
“Hey, don’t do that,” Jin says when he comes out again, jogging over to take the stack of bedding out of Kame’s arms. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it. You can go to bed if you want.”  
  
Kame lets him have the blankets, steps back and scratches his too-empty hands through his hair instead. “Okay,” he says. “Thanks. Just, I sort of have to be up early again in the morning, and I want to glance over my script again a little before I go to sleep.”  
  
Jin nods, giving a little smile. “Of course you do,” he says, but there’s no sting in it. Just a gentle poke.  
  
“Yeah,” Kame says, hiding his own smile. “Well. Goodnight.”  
  
“Goodnight.”  
  
Kame goes to the bathroom first to wash his face and brush his teeth. After he exchanges his clothes for a warm, fuzzy bathrobe, he settles himself at the head of the bed, propped up with pillows and his bangs twisted up out of his eyes with a clip, and grabs his script off the nightstand. As he’s skimming through the scene they’re meant to shoot tomorrow, he hears the water running in the bathroom sink again, Jin brushing his teeth. Only when he hears the outer door of the bathroom open and close again does he notice that he’s not paying any attention to his script.  
  
He pulls his feet up a bit and scratches his ankle, refocusing on the page.  
  
After another twenty minutes or so he feels his eyelids seriously beginning to droop. Anything that’s not in his head already isn’t going to get in there by morning at this rate. He finally gives up the ghost and puts the script aside, then gets to his feet and walks quietly to the kitchen to get himself a glass of ice water.  
  
On the way back out, he pauses again in the doorway. The soft yellow light from behind him falls across Jin’s face just a little. He’s sprawled out on his stomach, one leg off the futon, pillows scrunched up in his arms and breathing heavily. He looks dead to the world. Exactly as Kame remembers him.  
  
Jin’s had kind of a long day too, come to think of it. And he didn’t get a four hour nap in the middle of the afternoon.  
  
He turns off the kitchen light again and steps carefully over to where Jin lies, crouching down beside the futon, eyes adjusting to the dim. Then he reaches out a hand to pluck a lock of hair out of Jin’s eyes and smooth it back from his face so it won’t tickle him.  
  
“Goodnight, Jin,” he murmurs.  
  
Jin snores a little.  
  
*      *      *  
  
Jin doesn’t leave the next day. Or the day after that.  
  
Jin is usually still sleeping when Kame gets up for work in the morning, so Kame does breakfast by himself. If he has breakfast at all, that is, which he sometimes doesn’t manage—but when there’s time he likes to make himself something, at least some scrambled eggs or rice and miso. It’s just as easy to make enough for two, and he leaves some coffee in the pot when he heads out. When he comes home, the leftovers are always gone and the skillet clean, the coffee pot rinsed and drying on the rack.  
  
Sometimes when he gets home Jin is cleaning—he’s done a pretty thorough job on the kitchen already, but he started on the study at some point and seems to be doing it in stages. After Kame found him scrubbing the bathtub with dishwasher detergent, he finally relented and gave Jin a proper tour of the apartment and all its storage cupboards so he’d be able to find what he was looking for when he wanted it.  
  
Sometimes Jin is cooking, either trying out a recipe from one of Kame’s massive supply of cookbooks (with varying degrees of success) or just making things up on his own. He makes the squid again too. Twice.  
  
Sometimes Jin is sitting on the floor by the coffee table with the TV on and his futon hastily put away, his hair clipped messily on top of his head as he frowns at his computer screen with lead sheets spread all over the place. On these occasions, they order takeout. One day Kame finds him sitting on the couch strumming at his guitar, which is hooked up to the computer via some kind of little amplification device.  
  
“You didn’t have that with you before, did you?” Kame says as he shrugs out of his coat, because he thinks he definitely would have noticed a guitar case sticking out of that duffel bag.  
  
Jin purses his lips around the guitar pick in his teeth and squints a little too hard down at the computer screen, still plucking at the strings. “I left it at Pi’s.”  
  
Kame frowns a bit at that. But Jin is busy at the moment, and Kame is hungry, so he doesn’t press the issue. Just steals the open bag of macadamia snacks sitting next to the computer instead.  
  
Actually, if Kame’s not mistaken, there are other things around the house that couldn’t possibly have been in that duffel bag when Jin first turned up. The bag isn’t shrinking, but the stack of sweatshirts in the corner seems to be growing by the day, and there are at least four pairs of shoes that aren’t Kame’s in the shoe rack, when at first he’s pretty sure there was only the one. And Kame is almost positive that the amp tucked under the desk in the study is not his either.  
  
Sometimes Jin isn’t home when Kame gets there. The place always feels a little empty then.  
  
Until Jin turns up with a bag of Thai food and some elaborate story about a meeting with his manager who wants him to do this thing that’s going to be really long and boring and annoying, and somehow it carries them all the way through dinner quite pleasantly, and Kame only realizes at the end of it that he never actually found out exactly what the “thing” was.  
  
*      *      *  
  
One evening, Kame comes home to find Jin sleeping on the couch. The dishes are piling up in the sink and Jin’s leftover macaroni and cheese from lunch is still sitting in a pot on the stovetop, cool and slightly crusty. The coffee table is covered in computer equipment and notebooks, and Jin is sprawled out with one leg resting on the back of the couch, one arm thrown across a frown.  
  
Kame sighs. He drops his bag at the dining table and walks over to the couch. Gently moves Jin’s foot down onto the seat cushions, and pulls the blanket out of the stack of bedding. Spreads it over him, right up to his shoulders, tucking his arms down by his torso. He doesn’t try to put away the notes and computer stuff because he doesn’t know how it’s supposed to be and he doesn’t want to mess up Jin’s system—but he boxes up the macaroni and puts it in the fridge, fills the pot with water and leaves it to soak. Rinses out the glasses and coffee mugs and plates and puts them all in the dishwasher. Wipes down the counters.  
  
Jin doesn’t wake up until the smell of pizza lures him back to consciousness. He blinks at the boxes sitting on the coffee table (Kame shifted the papers to one end slightly to make room) like he’s trying to figure out why he left them there. Then it hits him that he didn’t, and he looks at Kame, looks at the silly variety program on the TV, looks at the plate of pizza Kame has balanced on his lap in the armchair.  
  
“Shit,” Jin says, sitting up and rubbing his face. “Shit, I’m sorry, I meant to—I fell asleep…”  
  
Kame shakes his head, still engrossed in the variety program—Ohno is about to try to pitch a bucket full of rubber chickens through a moving hula-hoop. “Don’t worry about it. You hungry? There’s plenty.”  
  
When Jin doesn’t answer, Kame glances over to find him watching him warily, like he’s worried the pizza boxes might be booby trapped.  
  
“What?” Kame says. “Calm down. It’s no big deal. I washed like four coffee mugs, I can handle it. I do have hands, you know.”  
  
Jin is nibbling at his lower lip. He looks less wary now, at least, but he still looks guilty.  
  
Kame sticks out a foot and nudges the coffee table a little closer to the couch.  
  
“Eat,” he says. “That fake-cheese pasta thing you left sitting on the stove looked absolutely disgusting.”  
  
A little smile tugs at Jin’s lips, and he ducks his head as he leans forward to open one of the pizza boxes, picking up the extra plate Kame left for him. “It’s fantastic,” he argues. “Traditional. Good old fashioned macaroni from a box, just like mother used to make.”  
  
“If your mother used to make you that, it’s a wonder it didn’t stunt your growth.”  
  
“Big talk, midget.”  
  
Kame kicks the closest knee he can reach, and Jin laughs and shoves his foot away, pulling his own legs up onto the couch and out of the danger zone. Jin gives him a gleeful grin as he lifts a slice of pizza to his mouth.  
  
Ohno wins a toaster. With a picture of a chicken on it.  
  
*      *      *  
  
 _Fruit_ , Kame thinks as he wanders down the hallway, feeling for his car keys in his jeans pocket. They definitely need fruit. For some reason Jin never thinks to buy any. Twelve bottles of Tabasco sauce, but not even a single banana. (Apparently there was a sale.) And he’s pretty sure they’re out of paper towels too. Will the market on the corner still be open by the time he gets there? Maybe he should swing by the one a few blocks over—he might think of something else they need on the way, and that one has a better produce section anyway.  
  
Kame stops short just past the door to the third floor lounge. Backs up a couple of steps, and—yep. He’d know that pair of shoulders anywhere.  
  
Maybe time for a quick detour to the vending machines.  
  
Yamapi glances up from the coffee urn as Kame walks in. Kame gives him a smile and crosses to the juice machine, fingering a couple of coins as he surveys his options.  
  
“Long day?” Kame says. Just chatting, as one does.  
  
Yamapi nods, bringing the coffee cup to his lips to blow on it a little. “Late rehearsal.” He leans back against the edge of the counter, stirring with the little stir-stick and blowing on the coffee again.  
  
Kame hums in sympathy as he pokes one of the buttons, and a bottle of key-lime tea drops into the dispensing tray. “Those can be rough,” he commiserates, bending down to retrieve his drink. “Especially when you’re busy.”  
  
Yamapi nods, lifting the cup to his lips again and frowning over a tentative sip.  
  
“So, how did the move go?” Kame twists the cap off of his bottle and drinks from it. It tastes slightly disgusting. Maybe he should have gone with the cran-apple flavor after all.  
  
“What move?”  
  
“Your girlfriend,” Kame says, fiddling with the cap of the bottle to avoid taking another drink. “Isn’t she moving into your place?”  
  
“Oh, that.” Yamapi lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Not till next month though.”  
  
Kame nods slowly, watching Yamapi out of the corner of his eye. Yamapi is just staring across at the fridge, sipping a little more of his coffee.  
  
“I take it from that answer that Jin never got around to telling you to cover his ass after he told me that your girlfriend moving in was the reason he couldn’t stay at your place.”  
  
Yamapi winces and makes a hissing sound. He snaps two fingers and points at Kame, like he’s just come up with the right answer at the pub quiz. “ _Yesss_. Right. He did tell me to do that.”  
  
“You forgot.”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
Kame nods, crossing his arms over his chest. Figures. “And I’m assuming the stuff about Ryo and Josh was a lie too?”  
  
Yamapi gives a little tilt of his head over the coffee cup. “Well, stuff about Ryo is rarely a lie, and Josh is just weird, so it’s hard to say, but—in this case, probably yeah.”  
  
Yeah. That’s kind of what he figured. Nice to finally have confirmation though, so at least he knows he’s not just going crazy.  
  
“So. Are you going to tell me why he’s really at my place?”  
  
Yamapi smiles. “Nope.”  
  
Kame nods again. “I figured.”  
  
“Sorry, Shuuji-kun,” Yamapi says, reaching out to ruffle Kame’s hair with his free hand. Kame bats him away halfheartedly. Yamapi just pushes off from the counter, wandering over towards the door. “You know my rules. I don’t play go-between in AkaKame domestic quarrels.”  
  
“We’re not fighting. And we don’t live together.” Well. Not officially. “And no one has called us that in  _years_.”  
  
Yamapi pauses in the doorway just long enough to give Kame a teasing glance, raising both eyebrows meaningfully.  
  
“That’s what  _you_  think.”  
  
*      *      *  
  
On the second day of the third week, Kame is off work, so he switches off his alarm and resolves to sleep in. Of  course, having trained himself to get up at ridiculous hours on not much sleep at all, he only actually manages to stay asleep until about 9:30—but it’s refreshing just the same. He takes his shower and blow-dries his hair and doesn’t bother to style it, and then he pulls on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and starts mulling over what to do with the time. He could try to catch up on that book he started three months ago. Or reorganize his closet—there’s a whole season’s worth of new stuff piled on top of the old, and he needs to get it sorted out before it becomes two seasons worth. Or maybe Jin will want to do something—they could go see a movie or whatever.  
  
He goes into the kitchen to make the coffee, but finds the pot is already warm and more than half full. He smiles a little as he pours himself a cup of it and wanders back out into the living room. Jin’s futon is still on the floor, and the balcony door is open. Odd. Kame hasn’t seen him sneak a cigarette since he showed up—he assumed he’d quit after all. Maybe he fell off the wagon?  
  
When he approaches the door to close it so the smoke won’t blow inside, he realizes Jin isn’t smoking—he’s talking to himself.  
  
No. Not to himself.  
  
“I can’t,” he says. And Kame shouldn’t be listening in on what is presumably a private conversation—of course it’s a private conversation, you don’t go out to the balcony for a conversation you want everyone to hear—but Jin’s tone makes him hesitate. “I can’t. It’s working, and I don’t want to— Well, I don’t care, I’m not telling him. It’s not like it changes anything.”  
  
Kame frowns into the silence. The person on the other end of the line evidently has a few things to say about that.  
  
Jin huffs a bitter laugh. “It’s stupid. …I know that, but— Shut up.”  
  
When Jin turns to pace back toward the other end of the balcony, running his hand along the railing, Kame snaps out of it and quickly ducks out of sight, escaping toward the kitchen. He feels like kind of an idiot hiding in his own house, but he doesn’t want to get caught eavesdropping either, and he’s not even sure he should admit to knowing that Jin was on the phone—but then that’s stupid too, it’s not like Jin was hiding in a closet. He was standing on the balcony with the door open.  
  
When he thought Kame was asleep.  
  
But it’s Kame’s house. And maybe the phone call has nothing to do with Kame. There are a lot of different “hims” around. Jin could be talking about anybody. It’s probably nothing. And it’s definitely none of Kame’s business.  
  
Still…  
  
“Phone call?” he says casually as Jin closes the balcony door behind him, sliding his phone back into his jeans pocket. Kame is leaning casually against the breakfast bar, sipping at his coffee. Casually.  
  
Jin blinks up at him. The smile comes a little bit late, and Kame’s stomach sinks. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked at all.  
  
“Yeah. Just Pi.”  
  
“Ah,” Kame says, nodding and giving a friendly smile that’s definitely still casual. “That’s nice. How is he?”  
  
“He’s fine,” Jin nods as he sets about clearing away his futon. “Busy.”  
  
Actually, now that Kame thinks about it, it’s a little surprising that he hasn’t seen Jin talking on the phone to any of his friends before now. He used to have the thing surgically attached to his face. Jin hasn’t mentioned seeing any of them lately either, not since he explained why none of them could take him in. Maybe he sees them during the day sometimes, Kame wouldn’t know—it’s not like he polices Jin’s every move, and somehow they never seem to talk about where he goes or what he does in any kind of detail, except maybe when it comes to grocery shopping. But Jin is always here with him in the evenings. Which in itself is a little odd. When was the last time Jin went more than a week without a night out?  
  
But then, Kame’s got old intel on that too. Maybe it’s like the smoking—out the door with fatherhood.  
  
“We were talking about getting a drink tonight, actually,” Jin says.  
  
“Oh.” So much for that theory. Just less often then, maybe? “That’s nice.”  
  
“You want to come?”  
  
Kame stares at him for a long moment before he figures out what Jin is talking about. “To the bar? With you and Yamapi?”  
  
Jin nods, still fiddling with the stack of bedding in the corner. “And maybe Ryo too. Not Josh though. He has a thing.”  
  
A thing. Yeah, well, that’s the way it goes. Sometimes you have a thing.  
  
Is Jin seriously asking Kame to come out drinking with him and his troop?  
  
That’s…unusual. Not that it was always unusual—but that was a long time ago. The last time Jin invited him out with his friends, Kame got irritable and Jin got sulky and they ended up in an argument so bad they managed to break a table full of glassware and a 200,000 yen aquarium. (Kame paid an extra 200,000 on top of that to “thank” the owner for not talking to the media.) Jin never invited him again after that, and Kame never asked.  
  
It worries Kame slightly that he’s actually even thinking about saying yes.  
  
“I think I won’t,” he says with a little smile of apology. “I’ve got some stuff I want to do around the house. You know, while I have the time. Thanks though.”  
  
Jin returns the little smile and nods, understanding. He also seems a bit disappointed. Or maybe that’s just Kame’s imagination.  
  
It’s not that he doesn’t want to go—Jin’s kind of bars aren’t really his scene, but he used to enjoy them a lot with Jin, early on. And he’s not all that close with Ryo, but he’s good friends with Yamapi even if they don’t see much of each other these days. And they’re not who they were back then, even if he’s still not sure who they are now. But the one thing he does know is that this whole thing with Jin these past few weeks has afforded them a strange sort of equilibrium, like they haven’t had since they were teenagers, and he really doesn’t know what will happen to it if it’s exposed to hard liquor and the company of other people who know how things used to be. Kame would rather not end up pictured on the cover of Tokyo Sports punching Jin in the face. Or getting punched. Or sitting in a puddle on the carpet trying to scoop a load of tropical fish into a champagne bucket.  
  
“It’s fine,” Jin says, hooking his thumbs in his back pockets and shifting awkwardly. “Some other time.”  
  
“Yeah,” Kame takes another little sip of his coffee. “Sure. Some other time.”  
  
*      *      *

They spend most of the day puttering around the house—Kame mostly runs lines and works on organizing his closet. Jin disappears for a little while at midday and returns with lunch, at which point he coaxes Kame into watching another movie with him. This time it’s  _Planet of the Apes_ —the old version, not the remake—which they both end up ridiculing mercilessly from start to finish, and which ultimately sparks a Charlton Heston impersonation competition. They both lose. (Kame is hamstrung by his awkward English pronunciation. Jin’s pronunciation is perfect, but his impression sounds suspiciously like Johnny Kitagawa.)  
  
The apartment gets quiet again when Jin leaves for the evening. And it’s a good thing, really. Kame does like his space. He can work on his script without Jin throwing things at him and complaining that he’s mumbling to himself again, or dragging him off to watch  _Plan 9 from Outer Space_. Or making a mess in the kitchen with the spices for his “secret” squid sauce. It’s fine that Jin’s not here. Restful.  
  
Kame makes dinner for himself for the first time in weeks. Just enough for one, and it’s nothing complex. Pan-seared salmon and a mixed green salad. He’s made it a million times, just the same way. Sometimes he varies the sauce. He usually just ends up using olive oil and balsamic vinegar because he doesn’t have time to mess with the rest of the ingredients, but this time he makes it the way it says in the recipe. He plays music and drinks wine while he cooks and eats in the kitchen, the way he usually does when there’s no one else around to accommodate. And it’s fine. Filling. Good.  
  
Jin’s clothes are still in a loosely contained pile over in the corner with the futon, and his computer is still on the coffee table, and the weird sauces and ingredients he’s bought recently are still crowding up the shelves in the fridge and the kitchen cabinets. There are pieces of him everywhere, but it still feels empty without him physically here, taking up space. That’s an old feeling too—the house in his absence. Back when Jin was over here all the time, camping out on Kame’s couch and eating his food without even bothering to ask, or snuggling up to him in his bed when it was late and they were both too drunk to think better of it. And even so, he didn’t really mind. Until it got complicated, and then he minded a little bit.  
  
But it’s not complicated like that anymore. Kame put that behind him a long time ago. It’s just weird because the house is so quiet, and it hasn’t been quiet like this in the evening for a while. And it’s fine too, because this is actually what’s normal, Kame in his apartment, without Jin.  
  
He turns the TV on for company.  
  
He listens to news and sports while he cleans up the kitchen, and then he changes out of his clothes and crawls into bed with his script for a while. And it’s good. Peaceful and quiet, just like always. He gets a lot done. His call time tomorrow isn’t that early, and he pretty much knew all the dialogue already anyway, but now he’s really solid on it. And he’ll be well-rested for once. That’s always a good thing.  
  
He flips off the light and slides down underneath the covers, tucking them up around his shoulders.  
  
Jin probably won’t be home till morning if past experience is anything to go by, so there’s no point in waiting up or leaving a light on for him or anything. He might even crash at Yamapi’s place—it’s closer to their usual haunts, and Jin’s not so good with directions when he’s drunk. But the other guys are with him, so he’ll be fine, whatever happens.  
  
Jin always has someone to lean on. He’s just like that.  
  
Kame isn’t aware of falling asleep until consciousness hits him with a jolt—a bang, like somebody throwing something hard at the wood floor. It’s still dark out, but there’s a shadow, there’s someone  _in the room_ , and he’s just about to go for the baseball bat under his bed—when he hears Jin hissing “shh!” at the inanimate object he’s just knocked off the dresser, and all the adrenaline rushes out again, Kame’s pulse still thudding hard against his veins from the shock. Stupid idiot.  
  
Wait. What’s the stupid idiot doing in here?  
  
Kame sits there blinking in the dark, watching Jin’s silhouette bend to retrieve whatever he dislodged—and then he just sort of stumbles over to the side of the bed and crawls under the covers, twisting clumsily until he can figure out how to get his feet up without catching his knees on the mattress or falling on the floor. It turns into kind of a side-scooting motion on his back as he moves further into the bed, trying to get comfortable—and then suddenly Jin rolls over and reaches for Kame, dragging him back down under the covers.  
  
“Hey!” Kame protests, slapping at the hand around his waist. He hisses Jin’s name and pokes at him with his elbow, trying to snap him out of it and ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing—but Jin just keeps pulling and squirming closer, trying to find the right spot to rest his cheek against Kame’s shoulder. Good thing Kame’s taken to at least wearing boxers to bed ever since Jin turned up or this would be a lot more awkward, but he’s still not exactly fully dressed here, and they’re not exactly kids anymore, and Jin is the only one who’s drunk. It’s weird to do this now.  
  
But Jin doesn’t seem to mind. He probably would if he were sober—or at least awake—but he doesn’t right now. And Kame…probably should mind. He does mind, a little bit. But he could push Jin off him if he really wanted to, and he hasn’t done that yet, so…there’s that.  
  
He watches Jin’s face in the half-light from the window, and it’s that old feeling again, the one that keeps sneaking up on him in odd moments when he remembers. Not exactly like it used to be—not needing, or even really wanting. Just having him close, even this much. That was enough once too, until it wasn’t anymore.  
  
And the apartment definitely doesn’t seem empty anymore, with Jin sprawling out over more than half the bed, one arm flung across Kame’s chest possessively.  
  
No. Not possessively, drunkenly. Unconsciously. In the manner of a hobo with his cheek pressed against a conveniently obliging park bench.  
  
Still.  
  
Kame rolls eyes at himself and then rolls over onto his side, and Jin snuggles up behind him like it’s just natural, just habit. As he feels his body gradually relaxing again, it occurs to Kame that Jin is the only person he’s ever really been able to sleep with.  
  
He’s shared beds with a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons—and he always sleeps, but he never gets much rest. Even with lovers, when the sex is finished, he usually likes his space to actually sleep. And he can never quite get comfortable no matter who it is in the bed, always worried about kicking them in the night, or waking up with morning breath or morning hair or morning wood. But he never worried about any of that with Jin. Maybe because Jin’s normal day-off hair is worse than Kame’s morning hair, and Jin’s morning breath is worse than anybody’s. Or maybe because they were still basically kids when it started, and by the time there was anything to  _really_  worry about it was already an old habit.  
  
One they haven’t quite grown out of, apparently.  
  
Kame feels the warm, soft press of lips against the back of his shoulder, and his eyes snap open again.  
  
His throat feels a bit dry, and his body sort of doesn’t want to move. But he forces it to, because things are likely to get more awkward soon if he doesn’t do something to nip this in the bud.  
  
“Jin,” he whispers, nudging him gently with an elbow. “Lay off. I’m not your wife, remember?”  
  
Jin, ever the contrarian, only snuggles closer. Buries his face in Kame’s hair.  
  
“I don’t have a wife.”  
  
Kame cranes his neck around to try to give Jin an incredulous look, but he can’t see anything past that mop of dark hair. Sounds like he had more to drink than Kame first thought.  
  
“I only have you.”  
  
It’s so quiet Kame almost doesn’t catch it.  
  
And just what the hell is  _that_  supposed to mean?  
  
“Jin,” he hisses. Kicks Jin in the shins a couple of times with his heel when there’s no response. “ _Jin_. Wake up.”  
  
Jin just twitches against him and responds with long, loud snore.  
  
“Idiot,” Kame sighs, dropping his head against the pillow again. He wriggles around a bit more, trying to make himself comfortable and nudging at Jin’s arm around his waist until it seems a safe distance from anything that might get a little too comfortable if Jin moves around in the night (which of course he will, it’s Jin). Finally he settles down to sleep.  
  
Usually when Kame sleeps in restrictive clothing or tangled up in something (or someone, for that matter), he dreams of flying harnesses and stunts and wakes up exhausted. Tonight he doesn’t. Tonight, he dreams of comforting things—warm arms and tequila, and things he used to love.  
  
*      *      *  
  
When Kame gets up, he makes coffee. He takes a shower and dresses himself in the bathroom, and he fixes himself a light breakfast of eggs on toast. Jin keeps sleeping.  
  
When he’s finished with his breakfast, Kame wanders back into the bedroom with his coffee cup and stands at the foot of the bed. Jin is still lying there, stretched almost diagonally across the middle of the bed in his rumpled jeans and t-shirt, one leg on top of the covers and one leg underneath. Sometime after Kame got up, Kame’s pillow became a plushie tucked against Jin’s chest. Jin’s head is halfway off his own pillow, tilted at an awkward angle to rest on the mattress itself.  
  
Kame frowns over the edge of his coffee cup.  
  
 _What are you doing here?_  
  
He leans slightly to the side, peering towards where Jin’s left hand is curled around the pillow. He’s not wearing his wedding ring.  
  
Was he wearing it before? Kame has no idea. It’s not exactly something he consciously looks for on anybody, much less on Jin. And he might have left it home knowing he was going out drinking and not wanting to lose it. Jin always gets impatient with jewelry after a while, and it wouldn’t be out of character for him to just take stuff off and leave it on a table somewhere, and not realize it’s missing until the next morning.  
  
Kame takes another sip of his coffee.  
  
His cellphone chimes in his back pocket after another couple of minutes, and he ducks quickly out of the room before it wakes Jin up—not that there seems much danger of that anytime soon. When he flicks it on he realizes it’s just the alarm reminding him he has to leave, so he dumps the rest of his coffee out in the sink and puts the mug in the drainer. There’s a half-pot sitting on the warming plate as he hurries out the door.  
  
*      *      *  
  
It’s a long day. A photo shoot for a new shaving lotion campaign in the morning, late lunch with the writer of the drama he’s doing in the fall, and an afternoon-turn-evening in the studio looping dialogue for the tanpatsu he filmed in January. It’s after eleven by the time he gets home. The living room is tidy, all Jin’s things stacked up neatly in the corner, the guitar sitting on a stand next to the pile of bedding and sweatshirts and jeans. The kitchen is spotless, the empty coffee pot upturned in the drainer. On the kitchen counter there’s a plate of squid with sauce and a bowl of stir-fried vegetables, all covered with clingfilm. Next to it is a folded slip of paper with instructions:  
  
 _Heat on high, 1 min._  
  
 _You’re not allowed to go to bed until you eat all of it. (No cheating, Kamenashi.)_  
  
 _P.S. See refrigerator._  
  
Kame frowns and takes the note with him over to the refrigerator. When he opens it up, he finds a tall lemon-lime sunrise margarita in a water glass with salt on the rim sitting in the middle of the top shelf. There’s another note stuck to the front of the glass:  
  
 _TEQUILA!!_  
  
Kame snorts, biting his lip against a grin.  
  
He follows the instructions to the letter, sipping at the margarita while he watches his dinner turning slowly on the plate inside the microwave. It’s not too strong, just enough to relax the muscles in his shoulders and turn an aching tiredness into a pleasant buzz. And the salty-sweet tang actually goes really nicely with the squid sauce. He never would have guessed.  
  
When he finishes it—every last bite, even the vegetables, which are slightly overdone—he rinses his dishes and puts them in the drainer, polishes off the last of the margarita. He flips off the light in the kitchen and notices a dim yellow glow coming from around the edge of the bedroom door. The smile is a little bit resigned, and a little bit not. When he pushes the door open, there’s Jin, curled up on the left-hand side of the bed in t-shirt and pajama pants, one foot poking out from under the covers. The lamp on Kame’s nightstand is switched on to the lowest setting, just enough to keep him from tripping on anything as he steps into the room.  
  
 _How do you do this?_  
  
He stands there with his hands in his back pockets, watching Jin sleep. Because it’s not even a surprise that he’s there. And it should be. By all normal standards of behavior, it should be.  
  
He unbuttons his long-sleeved shirt, puts it back on the hanger from this morning and hooks it on the front of the dresser to be put with the dry-cleaning. Tugs his tank top off over his head and drops it in the hamper, then goes into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. Last are the jeans, which he slips off and folds over the back of the chair. He pulls a fresh t-shirt out of the drawer, loosest one he can find, and tugs it on with his boxers. Then he crawls into bed beside Jin and turns out the light.  
  
Jin mumbles and twitches at the sudden darkness, and Kame watches him out of the corner of his eye as he lies back, tucking one hand underneath the pillow behind his head.  
  
“Kame?” Jin mumbles, twisting around underneath the covers.  
  
“Mm-hm.”  
  
“You eat all the stuff?”  
  
Kame smiles. Nods. “Mm-hm.”  
  
Jin snuffles into his pillow. Then he pushes up and shifts closer, one arm finding its way around Kame’s middle as Jin tucks himself against his side. “Good,” he says into Kame’s shoulder. “You look like a skeleton.”  
  
Kame gives him a sideways look. “Thanks?”  
  
“You’re welcome,” Jin replies, either missing the irony or ignoring it. The smile Kame feels against his shoulder a moment later tells him which.  
  
“Why were you out so late?” Jin asks. “Hot date?”  
  
“Work.”  
  
“You work too much.”  
  
“Tell them that.”  
  
“Tell them yourself,” Jin says, though he’s interrupted by a yawn. “You need your rest. You know, so you don’t collapse and die. I don’t like it when you die.”  
  
Kame wants to feel indignant—because what does Jin even know about it, it’s not like he’s been around, not for years, and Kame  _does_  know how to take care of himself, now—but somehow he can’t really muster up the strength. He’s just too comfortable. And warm, and relaxed, and full. And Jin is here now, even if Kame doesn’t really understand why. And Jin doesn’t like it when he dies.  
  
He pulls his hand out from under his pillow and sets it down gently over Jin’s arm, feeling the fine hairs underneath his thumb as he cautiously strokes it a little. There’s that smile at his shoulder again.  
  
And then it’s not a smile, but a kiss.  
  
Kame’s fingers stop moving over Jin’s arm. Jin holds himself very still—not tense. Just waiting. When Kame doesn’t do or say anything, after a few moments he feels Jin shifting again, and there’s another kiss a little nearer his collar. More deliberate.  
  
He doesn’t understand this. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. When Jin shifts again and pushes closer, dry lips pressing into the crook of Kame’s neck, Kame finally turns over onto his side and pushes him back, because what is going  _on_.  
  
That’s what he’s supposed to say. He’s lying there staring hard into Jin’s eyes in the dark, and Jin is just looking back at him like he’s full of questions of his own, except they’re different ones, and somehow his hand is in Kame’s hair now, stroking it back from his face. And Kame has to actually try not to turn his cheek against it. His heart is beating too hard and too deep, and he still can’t get the words out. Jin is looking to  _him_  for an answer.  
  
That’s when Kame gives up. Just gives in, pushes in and kisses Jin, warm and deep. Because he wants to and he can, he’s wanted to for years, and if that’s the question here, then the answer is yes. Was always yes. Seems like the right answer too, because Jin’s arms wrap around his shoulders and pull him close, and he tastes like Jin even though Kame’s never tasted that before. Jin’s body feels so strong around him, one hand curling at the back of Kame’s head. His mouth and his breath—he can hear it, feel it against his chest, little puffs against his cheeks, and there’s an arm so tight around his waist, fingers twisting in the back of his shirt. Kame doesn’t even notice he’s getting hard until Jin reaches for him, and it makes him twitch and gasp against Jin’s tongue. Jin smiles, but he doesn’t laugh.  
  
Kame pushes against Jin’s hand, pushes against Jin until he’s rolled over on top of him, kissing him hard through the clumsy strokes. He fumbles a hand underneath the covers and finds his way into Jin’s pants as well, and there’s Jin.  
  
Jin too. Jin is turned on too.  
  
If he had half a brain right now that would probably be another question mark, but at the moment it just makes a weird kind of sense. Like it’s the missing piece of the puzzle, though Kame’s lost the rest of the pieces now somewhere in the mess they’re making of the sheets. Jin makes little noises as Kame starts jerking him, accidentally bites Kame’s lip when a little brush of the head makes him twitch and lose his own rhythm. Kame thinks he hears Jin mumbling his name as he kisses down his neck—not the name everyone calls him, but the name Jin used to call him, ages ago, when it meant something.  
  
It’s Kame who lets go first, coming against Jin’s hip and his hand, and the last little strokes that are almost too much. Jin whimpers when he loses his place, but Kame comes back with a hard stroke that makes Jin push up against him and murmur his name again. There’s breath and heat and so little space, and Jin’s fingers in his hair, his teeth scraping Kame’s jaw, and it isn’t long before it’s Jin who’s shivering in his arms.  
  
Kame looks up again, sees Jin wetting his lips as he catches his breath. His eyes are closed. He’s beautiful. He’s very, very confusing, and totally unpredictable, and he’s beautiful.  
  
Kame’s shirt is wet, so he sits up and pulls it off again, balls it up and tosses it to the floor. When he glances back, Jin’s eyes are open, and he’s watching him with a little smile. That evil sweet smile that’s all sunshine and refuses to acknowledge the clouds.  
  
“What?” Kame says.  
  
Jin pushes himself up to sit as well—with some difficulty, as his arms seem a bit clumsy at the moment—and pulls his own shirt off over his head. Then he leans in and kisses Kame again, just once. Brief and soft, and Kame doesn’t know what to do with it. He doesn’t know what to do with any of this. Except maybe hold onto it while it lasts. And if it’s a dream, which seems likely at the moment, maybe just not wake up.  
  
“Go to sleep,” Jin says, stealing a little kiss against his neck as well. And Kame wants to argue—he should argue, they should talk about this, what the hell just  _happened_ —but his eyelids are already drooping, and his elbows are buckling, and…what the hell. Conversation can wait until morning, right? This will all still not make sense when he’s awake.  
  
They curl up together over on Kame’s side of the bed. Jin wraps himself around him and tucks his face against the back of Kame’s neck. And Kame doesn’t mind. Kame goes to sleep.  
  
*      *      *  
  
Kame wakes up to the smell of breakfast burning.  
  
He blinks a little at the rumpled bedding and the memories, his shirt on the floor and the—everything. It feels a little bit like a dream, but not enough to convince him it actually was one. And he’s slept too soundly to have slept alone.  
  
He pulls on a robe as he wanders out into the living room. Jin is singing again, some hip-hop thing Kame doesn’t recognize this time, and even though it’s in English Kame can tell Jin only knows half the words. Sounds like something Kame would hate if Jin didn’t sound so happy singing it.  
  
There are three frying pans full of eggs, and Jin is still wearing only his pajama pants, with an alligator clip keeping his messy hair out of his face.  
  
Kame doesn’t know how to feel. His body feels good, still relaxed and humming from last night, and his heart feels warm and fuzzy watching Jin in his kitchen—watching Jin be happy—but his brain is confused, and it’s only getting more confused. And somewhere in the back of his mind he has the feeling he must be setting himself up for a major disaster here. That’s what happens when you don’t talk about things, he’s found. One day everything is fine, and the next there are broken aquariums and deleted phone numbers and words you can’t take back.  
  
“Jin?”  
  
Jin stops singing and flashes a grin at him over his shoulder, then turns back to the stove.  
  
“What’s going on here?”  
  
There’s a little pause, just long enough that Kame knows Jin heard him right.  
  
“Breakfast,” Jin says cheerfully, smiling again.  
  
“That’s not what I—”  
  
“You like green pepper, right? Cause it’s not in the recipe, but I thought I would experiment since we still had some in the fridge. But it’s not all over the place yet, so I can still pick it out if you really hate it. But you shouldn’t, because it will be awesome. And you need your vitamins.”  
  
Kame can’t help a smile. He leans one hip against the counter. “What vitamins are in green pepper?”  
  
“I don’t know—B, maybe? Who cares, there have got to be vitamins. There are vitamins in all that good stuff. Hey, bring me one of those plates—I want to try that flipping thing with the pan.”  
  
Kame follows Jin’s careless gesture to the breakfast bar, where there are two plates and two coffee cups and two forks all set out. He grabs the nearest one and places it in Jin’s outstretched hand. Then he watches as Jin lifts up one of the skillets and pokes at the contents with a spatula and…surely not…  
  
“That’s never going to work,” Kame points out. “It only works with things that can—”  
  
Jin flips. And about half the eggs land on the plate. The other half end up on the counter. (And a little on the floor.)  
  
“…hold a shape.”  
  
Jin gives him an “oops” look and starts scraping the excess eggs into his palm to throw in the sink. Kame grabs a paper towel and bends down to clean the scraps off the floor.  
  
“Well, that’s why I made three…”  
  
Kame snorts into his shoulder.  
  
Jin finishes dishing out the rest of the eggs (normally this time) while Kame cleans up the rest of the mess. By the time Kame takes his seat at the counter, Jin is just settling in next to him and putting a plate of breakfast sausages between them. And Kame is in his bathrobe and Jin is still in his pajama pants, and it feels homey, and sort of perfect, and therefore definitely wrong.  
  
“Look,” Kame says, turning to him on the stool. “Jin. Don’t you think we should—”  
  
But Jin’s hand just curls around the back of his neck, and Jin leans in and kisses him softly. And Kame kisses back, once, because now he’s forgotten what he was saying, and that…that was nice. Really nice.  
  
Jin pulls back just a few inches and smiles at him, his eyes all soft and looking at him, not through him. And Kame can’t even quite feel like it’s strange.  
  
“I had a good time last night,” Jin murmurs.  
  
Kame swallows. His insides have gone a bit wobbly, but it’s the good kind. And he knows he still has to ask, but…this is nicer right now. Just letting it be.  
  
“Me too,” he says, and Jin’s smile widens. Kame reaches for him and draws him in again for another lazy kiss that turns into three, just to make sure that was real, what happened a moment ago. He liked that a lot.  
  
Jin pours him a cup of coffee and offers him first-dibs on the sausages, and he starts talking about this song he’s working on that’s giving him troubles. And Kame doesn’t ask again. At this point, he’s not sure he even wants to know anymore. He just wants this. An apartment full of Jin and eggs and stuff that isn’t his. Eclectic dinners and messes to clean up and snoring with the light on. Someone to pester him when he’s working too hard. Someone to come home to.  
  
*      *      *  
  
Kame has stopped asking questions.  
  
Jin isn’t always home when Kame gets there in the evenings, but he’s usually not late. He always remembers to leave a note or a voicemail if he gets tied up. Once or twice he comes back a little bit tipsy and smelling of beer, but he always gets in before eleven. If Kame is in bed before him, he changes quietly in the dark and slips in behind him, wraps arms around him. Kame lets him. Kame sleeps better once he’s there.  
  
Sometimes there’s sex too. Nothing really complicated, just touching like that first night, but Kame is fine with that. Jin feels good. Like he always imagined he would, back when he used to let himself imagine stuff like that. It’s only when they’re in bed together that Jin calls him Kazu, and Kame likes that. He doesn’t think he would with anyone else, but with Jin it’s different. A lot of things are different with Jin.  
  
It’s the fourth day of the fourth week, and Kame is tired. He’s been filming since 8 a.m. and it’s after dark now. He had the car drop him off a couple of blocks from his place so he could stop in for a few things from the market, but now he almost wishes he’d asked the driver to wait for him and bring him the rest of the way afterwards. It’s only about four blocks, but his feet are dragging and the bag full of yogurt cups and truffle oil is bumping against his leg, and once he gives a large yawn and nearly walks into a tree.  
  
The street is shadowed and quiet, but the conbini on the next corner lights the way, and he moves toward it like a very sleepy moth, gazing in the windows as he passes. Skimming over bentos and first aid supplies and magazines. And then he stops.  
  
*      *      *  
  
Jin is in the kitchen again when he gets home. The table is set for the two of them, the water glasses filled, with ice in Kame’s but not in Jin’s. It sounds like Jin is rinsing dishes in the sink, loading them into the dishwasher. Kame sets the bag of yogurt on the dining table and walks into the kitchen.  
  
For a few moments he just stands there watching. Jin with his sleeves pushed up and his hair pulled back, day-old stubble on his chin. Jin in the kitchen in sweats Kame folded with the laundry yesterday, in his stocking feet. Washing mugs and scratching at a spot on the ceramic with his thumbnail. Making a weird face at a thought in his head because he thinks no one is watching. Or knows it’s only Kame.  
  
It was nice. It was really nice.  
  
“Jin?”  
  
Jin glances over at him with a little smile. “Hey, you’re late—I was about to message you and make sure everything’s okay. You look like hell.”  
  
Kame tosses the paper onto the kitchen table, face up. Jin frowns at it for a moment—and then it sinks in, and the bemused look disappears. Replaced with a sort of guarded, guilty expression. No particular surprise.  
  
Yeah. He was afraid of that.  
  
 _Where is Akanishi???_  the headline reads in bold red. On the cover is a paparazzi photo of Meisa and Theia leaving their apartment building (the address of which has been conscientiously blurred) with someone who looks like she must be a nanny. The article goes on to explain that while these three have been spotted coming and going on a regular basis over the past few weeks, Jin has been nowhere to be found. It further posits a few less-than-flattering explanations for his absence, including drug abuse, having an affair, attempted suicide, another shot at a career in America, opening a strip club in Shinjuku, etc. Kame is trying not to dwell on the ones that cut too close to the bone.  
  
Regardless, there’s one thing he’s definitely not doing, and that’s waiting for some imaginary exterminators to finish spraying his apartment. And this has seriously gotten out of hand.  
  
“I need you to tell me what you’re really doing here.”  
  
Jin stares at him for a moment. Then he turns quickly, crossing to the fridge. “Is there any beer left?”  
  
“Jin…”  
  
“I think I drank the last of the Stella, but I thought I saw a couple of Asahi—”           
  
“ _Jin_.”  
  
Even with his face hidden behind the refrigerator door, Kame can see the wince. “What?”  
  
“What is going on here? Does she even know where you are? Am I going to have cops banging down my door accusing me of kidnapping you?”  
  
 _Is this all a joke to you? Are you using me to hide from her, is that what it is?_  
  
 _Why are you here?_  
  
Jin closes the fridge again and slouches against the counter beside it, picking at a stray spot on the handle. “She knows,” he mumbles, still not looking at Kame. “It’s fine—she knows everything there is to know, okay? She’s the one who told me to come here.”  
  
Kame raises eyebrows at that.  
  
Jin’s gaze flicks over, but darts away again just as quickly.  
  
“Well, not here exactly, but she kicked me out. I mean—not in that way, just…god. It’s complicated, okay?”  
  
“Why don’t you uncomplicate it for me?”  
  
Jin presses his lips together tightly, still frowning uneasily at the refrigerator door handle. Never in his life has Kame wished so hard to be a mindreader.  
  
“Jin,” Kame says. And swallows, because it comes out a little wobbly, and that’s not the way this needs to go. “Jin, we need to talk about this.”  
  
“But it’s not—”  
  
“We need to, okay? I need to. I need you to tell me what’s going on.”  
  
“But why?” Jin whines. “It’s all going fine, can’t we just—”  
  
“No.”  
  
They can’t. They just can’t anymore. The truth is, there’s a really big part of him that’s very happy with Jin’s whole not-talking-about-stuff plan, and it’s only getting bigger. And if he keeps letting it, and the stuff they’re not talking about turns out to be what he’s afraid it might be, then he’s going to be very, very screwed. And it’s bad enough to have let that happen to himself one time—if he lets it happen twice, he’s a fucking moron.  
  
“We can’t.”  
  
“Why not?” Jin grumbles.  
  
“Because it’s important!” Kame snaps back. And hey, at least it’s got Jin looking at him now. “Because you’ve been lying to me since the second you walked in the door. And whatever, it was fine while it was all just a…a game, or a vacation, or whatever the hell it was you were doing, but it’s not that anymore. Not for me, anyway. And if you really can’t tell me what’s going on, then…maybe it would be best if you left.”  
  
Jin just stares at him for a little while, all cowed and troubled, and Kame is starting to wonder how much worse it gets. How close he got to the truth, maybe how much he ignored, because god, he should have known better. He did know better.  
  
“Do you want me to leave?”  
  
“What?” Kame blinks, because it’s not what he was expecting. “No. No, of course not—if I wanted you to leave, I would have just said ‘get out.’ I want you to tell me what’s going on so I can figure out what the hell  _I’m_  doing here.”  
  
“You live here,” Jin says.  
  
Kame sighs. He wants to throw something, but he doesn’t want to clean up the mess. “I’m serious, Jin. I’m not playing this game anymore, I’m sick of you messing me around.”  
  
“I’m not messing you around!”  
  
“Well what the fuck would you call it?” Kame kicks the table leg. It hurts. “You show up at my door and feed me some ridiculous lie about exterminators, and before I know it we’re sleeping together, and I still don’t know what the fuck you’re even—”  
  
“We’re divorced.”  
  
Kame stutters to a halt.  
  
It’s a little bit hard to tell, because he was kind of in the middle of a pretty loud rant, and Jin sort of mumbles when he’s nervous (which is annoying, Kame hates it when he does that), though that’s probably less responsible for the fact that Kame misheard him than the fact that Kame’s got his hackles up, and he has a little trouble listening when he gets like that.  
  
“We divorced a year ago.”  
  
Well. Then again, sometimes he hears okay.  
  
Comprehension, however, is a separate issue.  
  
“Why?”  
  
Jin looks up, incredulous, one hand fidgeting with the pocket of his sweats. “What do you mean, ‘why’? Why does anybody get divorced? We didn’t want to be married anymore.” He looks down again, curling his toes against the kitchen tile. “It just wasn’t working.”  
  
This is all perfectly reasonable, and Kame knows that—but his brain is still sort of stuck on the original “why.” And he doesn’t like the answer it’s giving him.  
  
“I see,” he says stiffly. “So, what—you came to me on the rebound? Thought I might cushion your fall?”  
  
Jin blinks up again, startled. “What? No, that’s not—”  
  
“Then why, Jin? What exactly do you want from me?”  
  
“I  _missed_  you,” Jin spits. “Asshole.”  
  
Kame stares.  
  
He’s confused again, but at least it puts enough of a dent in his self-protective pessimism to actually see what’s in front of him. Yes, Jin is being evasive—but he’s answering the questions. And he’s not lying, not anymore. Kame can tell. He can’t always tell what the truth is, but he can usually tell what it isn’t.  
  
Jin is fidgeting again, trying not to look away, but not quite looking him in the eye either. “Look, I’m sorry it’s not some deep dark secret or whatever, but it’s the truth. I just missed you. That’s it. That’s the only real reason I’m here, I promise. I wanted to see if I could be a part of your life again.”  
  
“So you moved in with me?” Now it’s Kame’s turn to be incredulous.  
  
Jin shrugs a little. “It seemed like a good way to get to know each other again.”  
  
Kame nods vaguely, scratching at his hairline and swaying back on his heels. It’s weird how Jin is able to say that without it sounding as crazy as it is. When Jin says it, it seems to have a strange sort of logic behind it.  
  
“And…all the other stuff?” Kame says, trying not to let his throat close on the words. “Was that just an experiment too?”  
  
Finally Jin looks him in the eye. There’s a little smile when he shakes his head. “No. It wasn’t.”  
  
He’s not lying. He’s really not lying.  
  
Kame finds himself looking down at the paper again, garish headlines and grainy photographs, wild accusations and everything he’s been afraid of finding out, all printed in black and white and red. He can smell dinner cooling on the counter and there’s yogurt warming on the table, and Jin is still standing here in his kitchen talking to him. The jig is up, but Jin is still here. Jin is telling him the truth.  
  
“It’s not like I planned this all out step-by-step,” Jin admits, leaning against the counter and tucking his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. “I didn’t even know if you’d let me in the door, I wasn’t about to walk in here and start telling you I…you know. I just needed to see you first, at least. I wanted to see you, even if I couldn’t…you know. And I knew that you used to have feelings for me, but…I mean, it’s been a long time. I had no idea if you still felt that way.”  
  
Kame can’t quite look at Jin when he says that. It’s a funny little swoop, hearing it from Jin’s mouth after all these years. He feels a little exposed—and a lot stupid, because for god’s sake, if Jin knows that, then he’s known for ages…  
  
He clears his throat and straightens up a bit, jamming his hands in his back pockets. “I didn’t realize that you knew about that,” he says, in his best matter-of-fact voice. Which, apparently, sucks.  
  
Jin is smiling at him, eyes shining a little.  
  
“You’re not as good an actor as you think you are.”  
  
Kame shoots him a little glare. It takes him a moment to realize they’re both actually looking at each other again. And this time nobody is looking away.  
  
Kame feels a not-unpleasant tingle at the back of his neck. It’s sinking in a little more each moment that Jin is still there. He reaches forward and flicks at a stray corner of the magazine, which is looking more and more like just a lump of ink and paper. Nothing dangerous at all.  
  
“So…she told you to come here?”  
  
Jin breathes a laugh and tilts his head a little. “Well. Sort of. We’ve been sharing the apartment still, just because it’s easier that way, and she said either I needed to get over whatever I was moping about or she was going to kick me out on the street.”  
  
When Kame gives him a concerned look, Jin waves it off quickly. “She wasn’t serious. She was just giving me a push. Believe me, I needed one.”  
  
Kame nods, glancing back down at the grainy photograph again. “And…what about Theia?”  
  
“She’s fine.”  
  
Kame frowns at the casual tone. “You’ve seen her?”  
  
Jin laughs. “Where do you think I’ve been disappearing to in the afternoons?”  
  
Ah. Kame smiles back a little sheepishly. He really probably should have figured that one out for himself. Especially after all the random stuff started showing up around the apartment. He knew Jin would never have left his guitar at Yamapi’s place.  
  
After a few moments, Jin pushes off from the counter and walks over to the table, gently tugging the magazine out from under Kame’s fingertips. Kame watches him walk very deliberately over to the corner and turn back. He looks pointedly at Kame as he drops the thing straight in the recycling bin. Where it belongs.  
  
Then he tucks his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants again and dawdles a little more on the way back, finally coming to stand right in front of Kame next to the kitchen table.  
  
“So,” Jin says quietly, looking just a little bit nervous again. “What happens now?”  
  
“How should I know?” Kame says, just as quietly. “This was your plan.”  
  
“I told you, I never made any plans. My plan ended when I got in the door. You’re the one who makes plans.”  
  
“You force your way into my apartment with a bunch of stupid lies, mess up my kitchen, and take over my bed, and now I’m supposed to make your plans for you too?” Kame says with a little smirk. “You’re such a pain in the ass, Akanishi.”  
  
“I also clean your kitchen,” Jin points out.  
  
“Sometimes.”  
  
“Hey. Everybody needs a day off every once in a while.”  
  
“I don’t think you’re supposed to—”  
  
Warm and soft and hot, Jin’s mouth against his, stealing his breath away, and Kame’s eyes fall closed as he just leans into it. Curls his fingers in the soft cotton at Jin’s waist to steady himself, and to not let Jin go.  
  
It’s okay. The end of that sentence wasn’t all that interesting anyway.  
  
“Can I stay?” Jin murmurs low against his lips, and at first Kame barely even hears the words. Just the sound of his voice like that makes Kame want to drag him away into the bedroom and be done with talking for the night.  
  
He threads his fingers in Jin’s hair and presses closer, tasting him again.  
  
Coming home is always so much better these days.  
  
“Just one more question,” Kame breathes, with one more little kiss. Jin opens his eyes again and looks back at him earnestly, nodding a little for him to continue. Still not letting him go.  
  
“What’s for dinner?”  
  
Jin’s face splits with a lopsided grin, and he drops his forehead against Kame’s and hugs him tight around the waist. “Your favorite.”  
  
“The squid? Really?”  
  
Jin nods.  
  
Kame wraps his arms around Jin’s shoulders and holds him close, pressing a grin against the side of his throat. “Good answer.”  
  
*      *      *  
  
The television flickers silently in the predawn dim as Kame drifts awake. It’s warm in Jin’s arms, weirdly cozy squashed together on a couch that’s not really even big enough for one grown man, let alone two. Kame will have a crick in his neck, and the arm trapped underneath Jin’s ribs is prickling a little bit uncomfortably, but Kame doesn’t really mind. Jin’s feet stick off the end, and he’s snoring heavily into the armrest, and Kame is content to stay right where he is for now.  
  
The night’s film of choice was When Harry Met Sally. (Kame finally won a coin toss.) They watched it sitting close together so they could share the blanket from the stack of bedding in the corner and steal food from each other’s plates. But once most of the squid was eaten and Harry and Sally were busy criticizing each other’s dates over cake and Pictionary they got a bit distracted—and after Jin fumbled for the mute button and kicked the blanket out of the way, they got a lot distracted.  
  
Kame pushes a clump of hair away from Jin’s mouth and snuggles a little closer, enough to feel the soft huff of Jin’s breath against his chin. He thinks of Jin a few hours ago, trying to get his fly open and crawl down there without falling off the couch, and then that warm heat, and it sends another little prickle of want running down his spine. It’s a very old feeling.  
  
But knowing he can have what he wants—that’s still pretty new.  
  
There are dishes and remnants of dinner all over the coffee table, and a few things still at the dining table where they didn’t end up eating after all. The yogurt is probably still sitting there, come to think of it. He might have to throw that away by now. There must be stuff all over the kitchen too, because Jin finished up pretty quickly, and they haven’t left the couch since Jin hit the mute button.  
  
And that pile of Jin’s stuff is still in the corner, not to mention all the other random crap he’s been smuggling in here over the past few weeks. Amps and guitars and shoes and computer equipment. There are some unfamiliar books on his bookshelf now. And he has somehow acquired a complete set of One Piece with a few duplicates, when he’s pretty sure he used to have only about half the series.  
  
In a little while, he’ll get up and start tidying, because they can’t live like this forever, and the mess always seems to come back whether they’ve cleaned up in the first place or not. It might help if he cleared out a bit of space in the closet, so Jin’s pile of stuff won’t keep growing out into the middle of the living room. There are things he’s been meaning to get rid of anyway, it won’t be that hard. He should probably take a shower too, at some point. Maybe Jin will join him.  
  
Kame runs a fingertip down the side of Jin’s sleeping face, smiling fondly (and slightly evilly) when Jin twitches and nuzzles closer. He really does take up quite a lot of space. And Kame likes his space.  
  
Especially when it’s full.


End file.
